Mary Angela offers Private Yoga Classes, Yoga Thereapy and Psycho-spiritual Counseling in our Wellness Center or your home. Call 516-702-2921 for more details.
Our Teachers
Mary Angela Buffo is the owner/director of Ananda Yoga & Wellness Center in Southampton N.Y. She thoroughly enjoys both teaching classes to groups and working privately with individuals. She offers intensive workshops (for women, partnering and 'emotional' recovery) and retreats in Costa Rica. Mary has studied with many teachers (Anglea Farmer, Todd Norian, John Friend, Eric Schiffman)and continues to learn every day. She is a certified hatha yoga teacher through Todd Norian, Kripalu yoga teacher, Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapist and an ordained minister. Mary has also worked as a mental health counselor for over 12 years. Her classes are physical with a challenging vinyasa flow while staying conscious of the emotional and mental experiences. She has a loving approach to her teachings, creating a safe environment for all students. Her intention is to bring people back to their bodies so that they can empower their lives. Mary Angela has been studying and practicing yoga and meditation for over 15 years.
Ann Harmon began practicing Yoga in 1989. Her love of Yoga has grown since then. What began as strictly a physical practice, gradually became a spiritual practice. She was certified as a Yoga teacher by Yoga Shanti in a 500-hour program. She has also taken workshops with Beryl Bender Birch, James Murphy and Mary Dunn, two esteemed Iyengar Yoga teachers, Anna Forest, Mark Whitwell, Angela Farmer and Victor Van Kooten and Rodney Yee. Ann is inspired by these teachers and many others who have crossed her path over the years. She remains open to all kinds of teachings and takes what she feels into her teaching.
Ann has had experience teaching beginners, seniors, as well as more advanced students. Her class is about teaching her students to be present in their bodies and then learning to take the physical practice off the mat and out into the world as they live their lives. Ann tailors her class to be invigorating as well as relaxing. She finds the most inspiration from her students .
Hilary Herrick Woodward
Hilary Woodward has studied yoga for 10 years. It enhanced her spiritual journey by augmenting her daily meditation practice begun 30years ago. After several years of studying with a variety of teachers, Hilary discovered Forrest Yoga through Ananda teacher, Leslie Satya Pearlman and subsequently trained with Ana Forrest to become fully certified in yoga instruction. The Forrest Yoga technique emphasizes breath, strength, integrity and spirit. Through the careful instruction of intense pose sequences, students learn to awaken each of the senses and bring vitality to every cell of the body.
Hilary brings to students joy, humor and a passion for the transformative effects of yoga. She believes the best teaching helps the student to listen to the true teacher within. Guiding her students to mindful yoga practice helps them to take those skills off the mat into everyday life.
Hilary has a BS in Education degree. She specialized in early childhood for 10 years as a teacher with music as a specialty. Her expertise in teaching draws from extensive professional experience including classroom teaching, choir directing, dance calling and knitting instruction. She is mostly found these days in her organic garden, her kitchen, knitting, on her bicycle, and on her mat, but not all at once! She lives in Southampton with her husband Eric and two daughters Lucy and Emma.
Marcia Tumpowsky has been involved in the 'Healing Arts' for ever 30 years. She is a Certified (500 hour) Professional Kripalu Yoga Teacher. She is certified in Restorative Yoga and Pregnancy Yoga. She is a NYS Licensed Massage Therapist, Certified Healing Touch Practitioner, a Polarity Practitioner and has recently been certified in Positional Release Therapy. YOGA ON THE BEACH in Sag Harbor N.Y. was started in the summer of 2000. She has been teaching meditation since 1988, privately and in group settings. She combines all of her teachings in her classes and her bodywork.
Leslie Pearlman’s relationship with yoga began over 25 years ago when she stumbled upon her mother doing yoga in her nightgown on her bedroom floor. Leslie was hooked immediately. She used to tag along with her mother to her weekly yoga class and experienced her first yoga retreat at age 12. Leslie continued to practice yoga and in February 2000 decided to teach and study yoga full-time. Leslie completed her first Teacher Training in 2000 (Sivananda). In 2002 Leslie had the great fortune of meeting Ana Forrest, who has become her most influential teacher. Leslie has completed both the Forrest Yoga Teacher Training and Advanced Forrest Yoga Training and is honored to be a Senior Assistant to Ana Forrest. Leslie also has over 15 years experience as a fitness and movement instructor.
Prior to teaching yoga full-time, Leslie was an attorney at Brooklyn Legal Services where she provided legal assistance to domestic violence survivors. It was through this work that Leslie saw first hand the power of healing the spirit. After studying Forrest Yoga Leslie was able to take the knowledge of her many worlds and to help people apply that to fulfilling their lives. Leslie encourages her students to go deeper and to go explore the myriad benefits of yoga.
Doreen Corwith Eckert, M.Ed., has been studying and teaching aspects of holistic health for 15 years. She received her 200 hour certification as a Hatha yoga instructor from the Himalayan Institute of Yoga Science & Philosophy in Pennsylvania in 1998 and has been teaching ever since. Currently, she is working on her 500 hour certification.
Before returning to her Water Mill roots in 2000, she spent 11 years in Vermont teaching yoga classes, providing Massage Therapy, managing a state Health Education Resource Center and her own Evanya Wellness Center.
Doreen teaches classical Hatha Yoga which includes physical postures to purify and regain health in the body; Conscious breathing, philosophy, deep relaxation, sense-withdrawal and mind-quieting techniques. Doreen’s approach has been described as “warm, sincere, respectful”. She infuses classes with scientific details, inspirational readings and suggestions for daily life applications.
She teaches basic and intermediate level classes as well as specialties such as Seniors, Gentle, Pre/Postnatal, Restorative & Christ-centered Yoga.
Ann Welker is certified as a Children's Yoga Teacher. She has studied with Jodi Komitor of Next Generation Yoga and author of "The Idiots Guide to Yoga with Kids"; Gara Bedian, author & founder of "itsy bitsy yoga"; Shakta Kaur Khalsa of Radiant Child Yoga, author of Fly Like a Butterfly and Marsha Wenig of Yoga Kids International, author of "Yoga Kids".
Ann along with Vinny McGann are it thier mission to bring yoga to public school children on the East End of Long Island.
Mary Broidy believes in the transforming power of yoga. She started on her yoga path as a method of healing from the loss of a family member and the tragedy of 9/11 and to seek relief from “fibromyalgia”. Having had more than one “wake up” call, Mary made several life changes including leaving her 16- year Wall Street career. She thanks Mary Buffo and the Ananda Studio for the gift of yoga.
Mary is trained in Ashtanga yoga, a deeply purifying asana practice that emphasizes “vinyasa”, the coordination of breath and movement. She is certified in Ashtanga Yoga with Beryl Bender Birch Hard and Soft Yoga Institute. She is also certified by the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center of Neyyar Dam, India. She has been trained by Lino Miele, Richard Freeman, Sri K. Pattabi Jois, Sharath and Saraswati Ragaswamy. As a teacher, Mary emphasizes control of the breath and the bandhas, movement and postures that surrender the ego as a means to unveiling the giant spirit within. She teaches yoga as a joyful, therapeutic practice and especially believes in the uplifting power of mantra, meditation, and chanting.
Abby Vakay
Registered Yoga Alliance Teacher, and Certified Vinyasa with advanced teaching certificate from Kripalu’s Shiva Rea in Fluid Vinyasa, Wave Motion Within Hatha Yoga.
Inspired by Ashtanga, Anusara, Iyenger yoga and creative dance, Abby’s teaching style invites students to flow deeply within poses with breath and fluidity for a “movement meditation”.
She infuses her classes with combinations of pranyama, rhythmic chants and sound as a vibratory source of energy for embodiment of “spanda-shakti” (pulsing flow of life force). The result is an enlivened fluid power in ones body and life, guiding the evolution from within to a natural path of freedom, and the intrinsic joy of being alive, both on and off the mat.
“Enjoy waves of movement arising in your body and within nature as the very essence of the universe. Then, with peace of mind, become one with this divinity.”
Vijnana Bhairava Tantra
For Abby’s yoga schedule, fiberart and workshops go to: artnfiber.com
Isabelle Cote-Cohen began practicing yoga as a way to divert the stress of operating her restaurant. Her love of yoga blossomed to a point where she decided to pursue certification so she could share the greatness that yoga brings to the body, mind and spirit.
Isabelle became a certified Kripalu teacher in 2001 and has since earned her 500-hour Professional Level certification. She also earned additional yoga teacher training certificates in Prenatal and Pregnancy, Children's Yoga as well as Thai Yoga Bodywork.
Isabelle’s classes integrate influences from many different yoga traditions. She especially takes great inspiration from her background as a dancer as well as her vinyasa studies with Shiva Rea. With all of her training Isabelle has captured the true essence of yoga and brings power, exuberance, caring and love to her classes.
Phone: 631-204-1219 Email: